More Film Noir

The picture on the right(I hope, the pics have been acting strange for me lately) is Orson Welles, during his years when he was impersonating a walrus, Charlton Heston, and two schmoes. Its from Touch of Evil, and shows a perfect film noir shot, as very few could do. Orson was one of those people. Take a closer look, and you'lls see a few things. Orson is disheveled, unshaven, and corpulent. Chuck Heston is upright, stoic, clean, and crisp. You realize that Welles is the bad guy, and that Hestson is the good guy, but look even closer now. The light from the "window"(a classic noir shot) hits the 4 people on their upper half, adding focus to their faces.

Heston's face is in the light with a dark background, putting it in sharp contrast. He's looking straight forward, and is in the position of strength, with his fists clenched, ready for action. Welles's face is half in shadow, with the dirty, off white wall behind him matching the sweaty pallor of his big mug. His hands are in his pockets, which tells us that he's hiding something. The other two are instantly seen as having no importance, even though the short mexican man(its okay to call him that, he's really mexican in the movie) is the one talking. The real battle is between Heston and Welles, and the audience instantly knows it.

Now, this is just one shot from the movie, one instant in time, and even though our minds don't out and out tell us what is going on, we recognize things, and are told things by the director with shadow, light, focus, and framing. Thats what makes a director great, and that's what is a staple of good Film Noir.

This scene is a relatively minor one, and not one of the three that pop into my head when I think about Touch of Evil. The first is a 3 1/2 minute long continuous shot that opens the film. It sets the tone and the tension of the movie immediately, as you watch a car go across the US/Mexico border after having watched a man put a bomb in its trunk.

The second is powerful for another reason, and follows another Film Noir tradition of things happening without explicitly being shown. Vivian Leigh(again) is in a hotel room, and a gang of bikers sis in the room next door, making a racket. She gets worried, tries to call the front desk, but he doesn't want to have anything to do with it. The scene crescendos in lockstep with the ever louder music, as the bikers come in to the room, trap Vivian, close in on her, and drug her. They don't tell you or show you what happens, but the next you see Vivian, she's in a different hotel, waking up. Was she raped? Unlike lesser movies, its not the focus, so its never mentioned.

The third scene is one of pure rage, that Heston pulls off well. He beats the ever loving hell out of the biker gang, one by one, in the process picking up a man with one hand, carrying him a few feet, and then driving him down a bar and into the wall. Again, its a hint that something else happened with those bikers.

Thats it for now, I suppose.

Psycho is not a film noir.

Psycho is not film noir. Psycho is a thriller, or a psychological suspense film, but it is not a film noir, for many reasons.

1)Subject - the subject is psychological in nature, and is about a crazy murderer. This is not normal fare for a noir. There's a direct relationship between the killer and the victim, which is also rare in noirs. Noirs usually deal with a shady person, or gang, and deals with crime, usually. Murders may happen, but they're not the sole reason for the "evil" character.

2)Cinematography - This may be where people get the idea that psycho is a noir. Many of the shots in psycho borrow from the film noir genre, using light and dark, intersecting shadows, off-center subjects, odd angles, etc. But that was also just Hitchcock's style, you can find that in many of his films.

3)The Antihero - Usually in noir, but not always, there is an anti-hero, or a reluctant hero. A dirty, possibly corrupt person who will do whatever it takes to do "the right thing". Bogey was excellent at playing these parts, and Sam Spade is the quintessential anti-hero. There's no such person in Psycho, Sam Loomis certainly isn't one, and everyone else is a victim. Also, in most film-noirs, there are no squeaky clean characters, or if they are, they are offed pretty quickly, or are seen as a point of derision and scorn.(Laszlo in Casablanca pops into my head)

4)Focus - the focus in Psycho is on the murderer, and the murdering, and keeping the suspense high. In a noir, there may be suspense, but it is rarely the main focus of the film. When Sam Spade is looking down the barrel of Kasper Gutman's gun, there's tension there, but not the same tension as when Vivian Leigh is about to get stabbed in the shower.

The Hitchcock film that I would have a hard time choosing between film noir and suspense is "Rear Window". There's no hero, the filming is right, the focus is almost right, but the subject is still the murder, and the tension of the final scenes.